README

ftpmaster
=========

ftpmaster is a very simple FTP-based content management system (CMS).

In a nutshell, it allows privileged users to upload zip files containing
content that others need to view in a read-only fashion.  It stores old version
of the content for historical context.

ftpmaster is available under the MIT license (see LICENSE).

Configuration
-------------

ftpmaster was written against Python 2.7.  It may work on Python 2.6 but am
fairly sure I used a few features that were new in Python 2.7.

First, copy ftpmastersettings.py.EXAMPLE to ftpmastersettings.py and adjust the
settings according to your setup.

Next, make sure you have all the dependencies (python-ldap and ftpdlib)
installed.

Finally, run the ftpmaster.py file.  It will log everything to stderr in
addition to the log directory you specified in the settings file.

Usage
-----

Anyone can log in as anonymous (password ignored), or anyone can log in using
their LDAP CN (common name) and password.  Only users listed in the UPLOADERS
iterable will have upload privileges. (As a side note, ftpdlib is quite
extensible and you can easily use a different authentication method if your
organization doesn't use LDAP.)

To upload new content (as a privileged user), make a zip file and upload it to
the uploads folder.  After the upload, ftpmaster will automatically extract the
contents of the zip file to /current/yourzipname and
/archive/yourzipname/timestamp+username.  In this way, the /current folder
always has the most recently uploaded data.

Then, you can use a link to ftp://yourhost/current/yourzipname so that
non-technical users will always have simple and direct access to the most
recent files but they can also access old versions if need be.